Questing for the Future of Our Planet

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Planet Stewards has released more badges, and we would like to share them with you!

The first badge is a teacher achievement badge. Teachers earn this by completing quests that teach them how to use the program and how to incorporate it into their classroom. Our pilot teachers begin their training this week, and will receive this achievement when complete.

Teacher Achievement

The second set of rewards are general achievements. Achievements are small steps along the way, or areas of specialization completed during questing worthy of recognition. Achievements are not OBI compliant, but are an important part of creating motivation and providing acknowledgement of learning.

General Achievements

We would love to hear what you think. Feel free to leave a comment or question.

Congratulations to the teaches that have been accepted to participate in the pilot launch of Planet Stewards!

All together there were 25 High School teachers accepted from all over the United States. Chris Haskell, the instructional designers, and the NOAA content experts have been working hard to develop the pilot launch curriculum, and are excited to share it. The teachers will be training the first two weeks of November and in January they will be introducing it to their classes. In order to congratulate the teachers properly I have listed below the name, school, city, and state of the 25 accepted participants.

Kelly McAllister

Riverside Virtual

Riverside

CA

Sarah Cox

Woodbine Community School

Woodbine

IA

Jennifer Creasy

Charlottesville High School

Charlottesville

VA

Norman Alford

West Broward High school

Pembroke Pines

Fl

Latha Janet

Eau Claire High School

Columbia

SC

Lucia K. Jacobs

Keenan High School

Columbia

SC

Lisa Triolo

Columbia High School

Nampa

ID

Krista Dunn

Lake Taylor High School

Norfolk

VA

Stephen Coleman

High Tech High

Quincy

WA

Timothy Vaillancourt

Advanced Math and Science Academy Charter School

Marlborough

MA

Pamela Rainard

Smithfield High School

Smithfield

VA

Susan Twidle

Howell High School

Farmingdale

NJ

Birgit Musheno

Desert Vista High School

Phoenix

AZ

Montessa Young

Idaho Digital Learning Academy and Oregon Virtual Education District

Nyssa

OR

Catherine Silver

Winnacunnet High School

Hampton

NH

Julie Stratton

Cape May County Technical School

Cape May Court House

NJ

Shaundrie Jones

John L. Leflore

Mobile

AL

Samantha Kimmel

Florida Virtual School

Kissimmee

FL

Amanda Peretich

Calvert High School

Prince Frederick

MD

Vic Akemann

Stevens Point Area Senior High (SPASH)

Stevens Point

WI

Catherine Flippen

Mount Vernon Presbyterian School

Atlanta

CA

Bryan Hirschman

Essex High School

Essex

VT

Brian Olivera

Kodiak Rural Schools

Ouzinkie

AK

Melanie Joseph

Florida Virtual School

Orlando

FL

Sara Chaves Beam

Chesapeake Bay Governor’s School for Marine and Environmental Science

Glenns

VA

Again, congratulations Teachers! We are excited to have you be a part of Planet Stewards.

Planet Stewards is excited to present to you the badge designs for the NOAA career pathways. We would like to thank Eva Delgado for all of her amazing work. The badges turned out beautiful.

In the five areas of science covered by NOAA’s Planet Stewards badges, there are 3 career badges available for a student to choose from. Once mastering the required quests they earn the “super badge” which is the gold badge on the far right. This is the ultimate goal for a student, and the badge shows it with its striking design.

Take a look at the badges here. We are so happy to be sharing this with you and would love to hear what you think. Feel free to leave us a comment or question below.

Planet Stewards is making progress on the Coastal Management Career Badge, a minor badge of the NOAA freshwater sciences. The quests that have recently been designed were based off a Freshwater Quest Roadmap made by Lucas Gillispie. As you can see, the quests that are being designed for the Costal Management Career Badge include Introduction to Estuaries, Rising Tides and Shifting Currents, Coming To An Estuary Near You, Coastal Manager: Tools of the Trade, Data Quest: Measuring Water Quality, Stewardship of Estuaries, Hurricanes and Estuaries, and Culminating Activity/Project. Lucas has provided a short YouTube clip giving a brief tour of some of the quests learners will explore as they pursue their Coastal Manager badge.

Planet Stewards is looking for 20 high school teachers from around the United States to participate in the first pilot launch of Planet Stewards in the spring of 2013. This is a project of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) and 3D GameLab to provide high school students the opportunity to earn up to 15 NOAA-certified career pathway badges. The student’s use 3D GameLab, a quest-based learning platform, to complete quests using NOAA educational materials. They can earn experience points, awards, achievements, and badges, as they engage in an active, hands-on, inquiry-based learning program aligned with the new K-12 Science Education Framework.

Teachers will be required to participate in a two-week asynchronous training program in the first two weeks of November in order to prepare their class for questing in the fallowing spring. Students will be able to quest all semester long, or a portion of the semester, as determined by each teacher. Participating teachers will receive a small stipend, and also receive a NOAA Certified Teacher Badge. If you are interested and would like more information, see https://planetstewards.wordpress.com/call-for-teachers/.

Don’t miss out! This is going to be a great experience for both teachers and students! Applications are due September 15th 2012.
Post by: Kodi Sims

Recently, the Planet Stewards grant team met up on conference call to review the first draft of the instructional designers’ planning. You can see it here: https://planetstewards.wordpress.com/badges-quests/. The post includes Popplets, Planning Roadmaps, ideas about all the badges, and more! Leave us a comment if you have any suggestions.

The second day was a little more complicated. There was a total of 14 people working together, five of them flying in from around the country. Everyone worked very well together, and some great concepts were formed with the pairing of ideas and knowledge.

The professionals that were present he first day were the NOAA experts, and the founders of 3D GameLab, Lisa Dawley and Chris Haskel. Each of the NOAA employees specialized in a certain subject area. The roles of each person in Planet Stewards had to do with their area specialty:

The second day the instructional design team joined the group. This is when the creativity started to fly. Each technical designer was paired up with a NOAA expert to discuss and design specific quests, along with finding enough resources to fill each quest.

Chris Haskell and Lisa Dawley momentarily goof around while discussing the operations of Planet Stewards.

All in all, each person was very open minded and invested in the creation of this game platform and NOAA badges. This is an incredible team that has come together to work on Planet Stewards. Each and everyone of the Team is knowledgeable, has ideas, and together they work successfully.